


Endless War

by seterasilence



Category: Good Omens (TV), Good Omens - Neil Gaiman & Terry Pratchett
Genre: AU, Alternate Universe, Angst and Hurt/Comfort, Apocalypse That Did Happen, BAMF Aziraphale (Good Omens), BAMF Crowley (Good Omens), General Aziraphale, Hurt Aziraphale (Good Omens), Hurt Crowley, Hurt/Comfort, M/M, Pining, Torture, War, and she will write Eldritch sex, you can lead a girl to Eldritch horror
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-07-08
Updated: 2019-07-17
Packaged: 2020-06-24 12:50:12
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 7
Words: 15,595
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19724017
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/seterasilence/pseuds/seterasilence
Summary: The Apocalypse has happened. Adam has banned all angels and demons from destroying the Earth with their war. Crowley is reluctantly part of Hell's High Council, having manipulated the capture of Aziraphale, Heaven's soldier. But he remembers when there was more than Heaven and Hell, when 'our side' existed."Crowley's eyes flickered over Aziraphale. He knew the angel has been demoted from principality after Adam called Earth a neutral zone and sequestered away the planet from all angels and demons, leaving a blank desert firmament for God's creatures to have their final, ineffable war. And they'd made good on their promise within the blank space of the universe, spreading blood, avenging the Fall for Hell, crushing the Fallen in Heaven. The civil war that still haunted both sides. Adam said the Earth would have no part in it, and, banned from another second holy Eden once more, Adam cast all angel and demon from the Earth. None could enter. None could even find it."





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> For @insertnerdyjokehere for helping me get this first fic out there. Do you know what you've created?

_You're fighting an endless war_  
_Hunting a miracle_  
_And when you reach out for stars_  
_They just cut you down_

Heaven had ruined Aziraphale better than any demon could, Crowley thought as the guards dragged the angel in front of the High Council and forced him to his knees. Crowley kept his hands on his hips. Kept the black hood drawn over his head. He wanted to taste the air. _Three years._  
  
Aziraphale's mouth tightened in a grimace as the demons forced his wings to spread—dust-stained, blood-stained, but still a pearlescent white—and stood on the tips. A twist sounded, bone against bone, but sounds like that filled the Pit daily. Angels screaming. Demons ripping their victims apart piece by piece. _War._  
  
Crowley had gotten good at taking angels apart. All the eyes, the wings, the faces that shifted from lion to human to monster. They bled the same, unraveled the same, ended up in a pile of divinity at his feet the same way, calling on God. Aziraphale didn't make a sound. _Three years._  
  
"Aziraphale," Beelzebub hissed besides Crowley. "Captured at long last."  
  
The Lord of Flies' eyes lingered on Crowley's face, as if searching for a sign of weakness, but the nature of serpents are hidden, secret, slithering without a sound. Serpents don't reveal anything. Serpents don't break. Not anymore. Again, _three years._  
  
"It only seems fitting that out of your platoon, General," Beelzebub continued, turning to address Aziraphale, "you're the only survivor. This must be, what, your eighteenth front line under your command?"  
  
Crowley's eyes flickered over Aziraphale. He knew the angel has been demoted from principality after Adam called Earth a neutral zone and sequestered away the planet from all angels and demons, leaving a blank desert firmament for God's creatures to have their final, ineffable war. And they'd made good on their promise within the blank space of the universe, spreading blood, avenging the Fall for Hell, crushing the Fallen in Heaven. The civil war that still haunted both sides. Adam said the Earth would have no part in it, and, banned from another second holy Eden once more, Adam cast all angel and demon from the Earth. None could enter. None could even find it.  
  
Beelzebub stepped down from the pedestal, approaching Aziraphale. A scar slashed down Aziraphale's face, down his eyebrow. His human softness had been stripped away, leaving a soldier forced over and over to command the ground forces, an angel who'd rallied against the endless onslaught of demonic armies. A tight tug strummed in Crowley's chest. Three fucking years.  
  
"What will Heaven ransom for you?" Beelzebub laughed, grabbing Aziraphale's face, forcing the angel to look at them. Aziraphale's lips curled back into a snarl. "From what I hear, they can't wait to get rid of you. Put you in every mission they can, hoping you'll die. Because of what you did. Defied Heaven. Defied the War." Beelzebub glanced over their shoulder at Crowley. Waiting for him to break.  
  
Rage raced down Crowley's spine. His jaw yearned to extend, hiss in warning, a coiling heat ready to strike.  
  
"How many demons have you slaughtered?" Beelzebub said, each word thick like taffy, meeting Crowley's slit eyes as if asking the question to him.  
  
"Not enough," Aziraphale said, just before Beelzebub backhanded him. Aziraphale spit blood. Crowley inadvertently took a step forward, and he suddenly knew what it was like, to desire bloodshed for dignity, for honor; he would launch a thousand ships to erase Aziraphale's words and bring back the angel Crowley had lost. The Aziraphale who looked back at him after Gabriel screamed _damn ineffability_ , and plunged his sword into Beelzebub's chest on an air base, the way Adam shouted that if they wanted to play that game, they couldn't do it here. The way the Earth disappeared with the snap of a finger—no more bookshops, no more Bentley, no more Ritz, just a huge cosmic black hole and a star-filled desert of blessed nothing.  
  
"Careful," Beelzebub said, "or you won't be able to see your old friend again. We of the High Council are in charge of interrogation, you see. Planning, plotting. Crowley here had the idea first to lure your team in. His idea to spring the traps. Get you all killed."  
  
Crowley swallowed hard, not trusting himself to speak. Beelzebub hadn't trusted him since Earth disappeared, but Crowley had always been serpent-swift: charming here, flattering there, reminding the demons that he knew the angels better than all of them, that the victories he'd secured had been in Hell's name, that using his angel for a millennia meant he was the Fallen for the job.  
  
So, High Council. Advisor. Torturer.  
  
Three. Years.  
  
Aziraphale's hands clenched, the shackles binding him to Hell clanking along his wrists. Crowley's eyes narrowed, picking out the black tattoos wrapping around the skin of Aziraphale's wrists—Enochian? Heavenly scrawl, certainly.  
  
Aziraphale wouldn't look at him. The dented and scorched angelic armor clanked heavily as the angel shifted, tugging at his wings pined around him. His chest heaved. A crunch filled the dark hall. All Crowley could do was look—desperate that the softness he'd loved then still survived in the now.  
  
"Yes," Crowley drawled, shifting his long, thin body, drawing on the confidence and brash bravado that had become his mask in the Abyss. "I did. And it paid off, didn't it? What does it take, Beelzebub, to get you off my back?"  
  
Crowley stepped forward, pulling a small dagger from his cloak. He pushed Beelzebub away from Aziraphale, tucking the blade underneath the angel's throat. Making those ice-cold blue eyes stare into his golden ones. _Taste the air,_ he wanted to say. But Aziraphale had never been a snake, couldn't understand what radiated off of Crowley from the moment he saw the sun dragged into Hell.  
  
_God, I missed you, angel._


	2. Chapter 2

_ So raise your banner, fight your war _

_ Break the silence, no remorse _

_ Won't die within _

_ Blood for freedom _

_ Raise your banner, won't you come _

_ Fight the venom, the good die young _

_ Won't die within _

Crowley loved his Bentley. He loved the wind in his ears, he loved the smell of the sea. He loved the chatter of humans passing him by, he loved the shaking leaves of plants as they grew under his tutelage.

_He loved—_

He loved the way wine rolled over his tongue, coating his mouth with a different kind of red than the exposed metallic of blood. He loved the lift and tilt that would come over his body like an unfurling flower bloom when he was three glasses in. He loved the way it was easier to say _love_ that far in the bottle, but he'd been practicing, each day since the Disappearance. He practiced saying it. _Love._

Blood seeped into his skin, got under his nails, becoming its own line of scales marking his flesh. Divinity coated his arms like offal, up to his elbows in angels being wrenched from their human corporations. His knives were dirty. His threats rolled too easily off his tongue. Terror tainted the air. _Pollution_ . He dug his cursed blades across the essence of a captured foot soldier, an angel held long in captivity, and repeated in his head: _I love my Bentley, the wind in my ears, the smell of the sea. I love—_

The angel screeched and trembled under him. Against his will, he took a breath—not just to breathe, but to taste—and pushed down the sudden sick feeling climbing up his throat, wondering what was happening in an unknown cell to _his_ angel. His angel who had been taken from the High Council chambers and back into the endless Pit, far away from him. Not to be trusted, the Serpent of Eden, not even by his own demonic kind. But Crowley played his part perfectly, the evil demon of Hell, this wily old serpent, and now he fulfilled the torture sentence of another while the other demonic advisors conspired behind his back. He thought of the humans passing him by, the rustle of his plants, _I love the wind in my ears, the smell of the sea. I love—_

"Crowley."

He looked up from his work, realized he'd tuned out the high-pitched pant of the creature coming apart under his hands, and saw Beelzebub. He cocked an eyebrow and pointed his blood-soaked knife at the demon. "Beelzebub." The knife moved, pointing at the angel. "Angel. This naming game is delightful, but seems unnecessary at this point."

Beelzebub grimaced. "The advisors have voted. You're to be the next one to interrogate the General."

"Voted without me, eh?"

Beelzebub shifted. "It's a unique situation."

"How long have you been interrogating him?" Crowley asked, getting to his feet and wiping the blades against his black cloak. His red hair fell across his face—long once again, full of small braids like he'd once worn before the Flood.

"We haven't stopped since he arrived." Beelzebub licked their lips. "He's not breaking."

Crowley nodded, even as that familiar twist of rage curled up his spine. He suppressed a shiver, imagining lunging, sinking long wicked fangs into Beelzebub's neck, the hot pump of venom infecting the demon until they collapsed, immobile.

"What are you trying to get out of him, exactly?"

"Locations. Other planned attacks. Anything strategic. We have to be prepared for their next onslaught. You know our numbers run low. The War has proven...difficult to win. We thought...you might have just the right influence on him.” Beelzebub paused. “We decided to trust you, Crowley."

"You thought right," Crowley smirked. "Always did take you a while to make the most logical choice. Didn't you know, fastest way to your destination is a straight line?"

Beelzebub fumed, eyes lit with a kindled anger. There was nothing _but_ anger in Hell, nothing but fear and fury. It tasted like sharp, like hard, suffocating stone.

"Where is he?" Crowley asked.

"Bottom level," Beelzebub said, eyes shifting from Crowley's golden eyes to the huddled creature against the wall. "Isolation pit. I'll take this one from here."

"Have fun," Crowley muttered as he closed the dungeon door behind him. Closed it on Beelzebub's grin. Closed it on the trembling angel. Still, the scream followed him down the hallway.

***

The guards shifted as Crowley approached, sliding apart just enough for Crowley to slip by. Crowley tapped the guard on the shoulder, and inclined his head towards the dungeon door that cracked opened for him. No one came in or out with the Council’s explicit instruction. "Don't wait up," he breezed. Tilted chin. Barest of smiles. The guards looked at each other and shrugged.

"Means take the night off," Crowley explained. "Beelzebub's orders. Scram."

The cell clicked closed behind him. Crowley felt power climb the walls, sealing him inside. He didn't turn, not yet, not when he balanced on the edge of a pin. The demons had accepted his Trojan horse of trust. Would he keep it? _Never._

He fingered a piece of white chalk. Deep breath. It was now or never. The chalk crumbled as he traced a sigil on the door. Careful, so the guards wouldn't hear the gentle scrape. Careful, so they wouldn't sense the shift of gathering power centralizing into one contained space.

It had never been his specialty, this mathematical magic of symbols and interwoven circles. How Aziraphale would've laughed at the countless hours Crowley spent researching behind Hell's locked doors, only to hone his skills, sharpen his magic to be as deadly as his serpent's fangs. No demon swagger here, no imagination, nothing in this magic but angelic preciseness. Crowley perfected every line. After all, he had been an angel once upon a time.

When he closed the circle, the sigil thrummed and glowed, and he gathered the scraps of his courage—and hoped the rest wouldn't be blown away—and turned to face Aziraphale. 

A mess. Aziraphale's corporation hung like a rag doll, suspended by chains against the wall. His body had been metaphysically split open, allowing the tether between corporation and discorporation to thin. Attached to that tether, growing as if from the soil of physicality, extended Aziraphale’s true form—his angelic soul. Crowley's heart lurched and he swallowed hard. Never in six millennia had he been privileged to see Aziraphale's angelic spirit and now, forced into being, Crowley wanted to weep.

It felt like something had been stolen from him.

A huge swirling black hole, like a pupil, stared at him. A ring of blue circled the black mass and Crowley clenched his fists, holding the grief quivering through him at the sight of the black wisping out and into the blue. He'd seen it before, with other angels. A fraying of the mind. A creeping insanity.

Aziraphale's wings fluttered—in recognition?—the white feathers stretched out flat and pinned to the stone. The eyes lining his wings were gouged and bleeding, full of pokers _. Blinded._ Behind the black pupil, a light throbbed, obscuring Aziraphale's true face—be it dragon, lion, or dog, Crowley didn't care. Not when he knew firsthand the agony of being pulled apart like this. When Crowley had done it himself to many others before.

"Oh," he breathed out, that grief needing words. The air lingered on his tongue, the taste of _wild,_ and _unbalanced,_ and _pain_ drifting through him, and he knew that if Aziraphale hadn't broken yet, he would soon. Crowley crossed the room and held his hands, palm out, to Aziraphale.

"I'm not going to hurt you," he said gently, and sank to his knees, wrapping his arms around the slack human corporation, pulling the chained limp form as best he could into an embrace, balancing the body against his own.

The black hole—Aziraphale, that was truly Aziraphale—seemed to swirl faster. Crowley imagined the angel cocking his head to the side, eyes opening wide with question— _what are you doing?_ The black wisps bled freely into the blue, nearly swallowing the ring.

"Oh angel, I'm so sorry," Crowley whispered. Demonic power lit his free hand and using all his strength, Crowley grabbed the soul of his best friend. Divine power rushed through him, illuminated with a shocked trembling as Crowley overpowered the angel with Hell, stuffing the angelic soul back into the human corporation. The ring of blue was a thin sliver, the black yawning and Crowley realized he whispered soothing noises, a mixture of _ssssorrys_ and _trusssst me._ He zipped the human body over the pulsating eye, tucking the light and divine safe inside the shell.

Aziraphale reared back, smashing the body into the stone wall as his holy soul adjusted— _twisted_ —to meet the confines of his body.

Crowley's eyes burned. A sob clenched his lungs, but he couldn't be weak. He'd Fallen, after all, he was one of the toughest demons in all of Hell, and soon, after all his planning, all his scheming, he could get them out of here if he kept it together a little bit longer. So, he held on as Aziraphale wrenched, the chains rattling, Aziraphale's breath high-pitched with agony. Crowley's hands flattened around Aziraphale's bare torso, feeling the clench and push of the body against his. Starved, his angel was so much thinner now, tight as a rope, ragged scars tracing his skin, down his arms. _Famine._

Aziraphale seized, jerking in tight, wrenched motions. A knock sounded from the other side of the wall. Crowley dragged the air across his tongue—pleasure filled the air—the guards thought Aziraphale's sounds were due to Crowley’s expert _ministrations._ In a way they were. Crowley bit his lip, wishing it would end soon and continued to hiss out reassurances-- _wouldn’t he remember me? Us?_ Aziraphale wrenched in a sob, let it out as a shake as the seizure eased, and whispered, disbelieving, "Crowley?"

His name. Spoken soft, pain-filled, but with the same taste of hope. "Hold on," Crowley said roughly. He reached up to the shackles imprisoning Aziraphale to the wall. "You'll be out of here in no time, I promise."

"Don't remove them," Aziraphale gasped.

"I have to," Crowley said, an unexpected agony in his voice. "They bind you to Hell."

"Cancels out the tracking spell Heaven has on me," Aziraphale whispered, his wrist rotating, the black tattoos racing around his skin. "They always know where I'm at. Keep my power in check. Think I might run away with you for real."

"Like you'd say no, this time." Crowley pressed his lips together and used magic to heat the chain, just below the cuff. It turned molten red, dissolving into slag. Dread ate at his insides—with Aziraphale's power contained, he'd had to have survived all those battles on will and skill alone, killing demons with his hands, slaying with sword through body. The human way. The ugly way.

Aziraphale's wrist fell to his lap. The second arm followed not long after. Crowley took Aziraphale's wrist in his hands, pushing the metal cuff up as much as possible to see the Enochian spell. He traced it with his finger, saw white lines bisecting the unnatural black. Knife lines.

"Did you do this?" he whispered, and for once, he wished his imagination was as dull as Hell's décor. He could see Aziraphale forcing his sword against the black marks, marring them, making his blood rise to the surface as he tried a human approach to a terrible sort of freedom.

"Didn't work," Aziraphale grunted. "Can't break them."

Crowley couldn't escape the image, so he stood, began plucking the rods rammed through Aziraphale's wings. The eyes bled, puckered, and shifted away. He checked Aziraphale's feathers, ran his hands through the worst of the damage, looking for a speck of Fallen black. All white.

Free from the wall, Aziraphale curled up. "I can't heal you," Crowley whispered. "Too powerful a spell in such tight quarters. They'd feel. Can you stand?"

Together, they managed to get to their feet. Aziraphale leaned heavily against Crowley and Crowley ripped his cloak off, covered the angel in darkness. "Shining like a beacon," Crowley whispered. He didn’t know why he felt the urge to speak--as if to reassure Aziraphale that he was still pure, that Crowley was doing the selfish thing yet again for _them,_ and oh, how do you like your blue-eyed boy now, God? 

"Looks like you're back in the 14th century," Aziraphale noted, and Crowley shifted in his black, flowy attire.

"I'd take the plague any day," he said. "Now, hold on. Once I blast through the door, we're going to have to move fast."

"Betraying Hell again?" Aziraphale listed. "Good idea?"

"Best one in three years," Crowley said and touched the sigil with an open palm. "Three. Two..."


	3. Chapter 3

_We are forever as one in what remains_

_You're in my blood_

_from the cradle to the grave_

_I don't like to think about the pieces_

_Or the cracks and the breaks that still remain_

_If I could breathe, I'd ask you_

Crowley had forgotten, for the longest time, that war was Aziraphale's first inclination. Before books, before tweed, before sushi, Aziraphale has been a soldier in the Lord's holy army. He'd guarded the Eastern Gate for somebody's sake. He owned a flaming sword.

Somehow though, having Aziraphale at his back in a stance to kill, both of them covered in demon blood as the bodies piled up in the cavern leading upward to the firmament, it seemed like disassociation, like this bloodied wild thing guarding his back could have no relation to the tea-drinking cake-loving book-adoring angel he knew for so long.

Crowley pushed them past the next layer of Hell, his nub of chalk nearly worn to the quick. The sound of Aziraphale's stolen sword whisked through the air, and the thump of the newly slain followed close behind. Crowley could hear Aziraphale's raspy breath, knew the angel was close to collapse. Crowley felt the oil slick pool of his own occult magic run low—the spells had been difficult for someone untrained as he, but they only had one more layer to go. The burlap bag he'd stashed at this final cavern had everything they needed. One more layer.

The drums of Hell sounded throughout the cavern, filling Crowley's head with a beat that made his blood boil. He remembered the drums when Earth first disappeared, when the first demons attacked the angels. _War._

A scream. He turned briefly to see Aziraphale clashing his sword with another demon, fighting quick and fast within the tight confines of the cavern. A second demon rushed toward Aziraphale, ready to tackle them both. Crowley reached down for his weapon in the bag at his feet—wished he wouldn't have to use it so soon—and withdrew a gun glowing red with hellfire power. He aimed and fired. The blast encompassed the whole cavern, but the bullet penetrated the attacking demon through the forehead. He glowed with golden light and with a shriek, the creature evaporated into smoke.

A head rolled at his feet and Aziraphale turned from the newly decapitated body, clutching at a freshly bleeding shoulder. "A gun?" he asked. Eyebrows raised. "Really?"

"Back up," Crowley said, wiggling the gun. "Can't rely solely on demonic powers. What would happen if I got shackles on my arms? Bad straights, that."

"There's divinity in the bullets. Smiting bullets. Smote?"

Crowley's lips pinched, the answer wrenched from him. "Lots of dead angels down here to harvest from," he said. "Easy to make." The chalk disintegrated in Crowley's hands as he drew the final sigil and Aziraphale's silence stretched. Crowley placed his hand and remaining magic on the sigil, blasting their way up and out of the pit.

The firmament sprawled before them as a desert of stars. The black night shimmered with galactic light. Silence filled the space where Earth once stood, now an endless, lifeless galaxy of God's creation. Crowley put his arms around Aziraphale, holding the angel up as they crawled out. The drums pounded louder. The bag was clutched in his hands. Three years in the Pit. Three years since he'd seen the sky, looked at the diamond twinkles that he'd hung eons ago, and he didn't realize how much it had hurt, to go _without._

"Can you hold onto me?" Crowley snarled, harsher than intended. _Help me. I’m not as strong as I thought._

"We're never going to get away." Aziraphale's arms tightened around Crowley, his eyes crinkling, and how could he ignore the heavens above, the glittering starlight? Why was he so focused on Crowley when freedom lay before him? The beauty?

"Course we are," Crowley said, anger beginning to seep into his words. This wasn't the end. Such little faith his angel had. "We'll move faster here, but you have to hold on." He thrust the burlap bag into Aziraphale's hands, dug for the pair of meat hooks stolen from some torture chamber.

Aziraphale held the hooks with confusion, but there wasn't time to explain. The hell mouth glowed with fire. The drums pounded so loud, Crowley could only taste the hate. Demons were coming.

Crowley twisted—his body lengthening, thickening, his skin falling away, replaced by shimmery black scales. Without the confines of gravity and mortal planes, he wasn't restricted to be cobra-sized or anaconda-large. Crowley became a celestial serpent, fit for the skies, even as Aziraphale became a tiny dot below him, the angel's eyes widening in disbelief. Earth did not confine Crowley—the galaxy did.

He curled around Aziraphale's small shape and felt the sudden twinge of pulled scales, the irritating pain of something sharp digging under the iridescent protection to jab at his skin. Aziraphale climbed across Crowley's huge form, the meat hooks notching and pulling back his scales like anchors to give him leverage until he settled near Crowley's diamond shaped head. Clever angel.

The drums vibrated down Crowley's scales, the scent of stardust and brimstone overwhelming his senses. He shot forward, the small twinge of pain tightening where Aziraphale hunched on his back, dug the hooks in and held on tight. Crowley slithered across the desert, leaving a trail of stars twinkling in his wake, away from Hell.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you for all the kudos and comments! They truly do make this creative process enjoyable. 
> 
> Also. Probably shouldn't have watched Hellsing so close to writing this.


	4. Chapter 4

_My heart_

_like a planet the sun forgot_

_Where now?_

_Orbiting the light that I had lost_

Crowley didn't know how far they'd travelled, but at some point, his body gave out. A spasm, a muscle clench that strung his serpent-form tight as a bowstring, and he writhed, thrashing in pain. He couldn't keep going without rest. His strength was gone. With one final grasp for occult power inside of him, he forced his body to become a two-legged creature once more.

Head hanging. Red clay hair covering his eyes. Stardust coating his body until it shimmered. A soft sob left his throat and he realized he was on hands and knees, desperately still trying to keep crawling forward. _Aziraphale._ The name echoed inside of him even when nothing else could. _Aziraphale._

Where could he have gone? Tossed from the back of the celestial snake when Crowley couldn't maintain this form anymore? Did Crowley throw his angel off, and now Aziraphale was crushed somewhere, broken limbs, broken neck, discorporated, _separated_ —

He felt a hand on his shoulder, pushing him back, sweeping the hair from his vision until his face was cupped in angelic hands. Oh thank God—yes, he'd thank God, but only this once. Aziraphale's face peered down into his, his heartstring mouth forming words and Crowley blinked, tried to focus.

"Oh, my dear," Aziraphale whispered, his voice nearly breaking. "My brave serpent, can you stand? We have to hide."

Crowley's heart lurched. _My dear._ It had been so long and suddenly, even in the middle of this barren galactic wasteland, he was home. Aziraphale's arms wrapped around Crowley and the demon felt like a brittle stick, liable to snap given any pressure. The stars glittered off of the desert dust in an endless night. Nebulas swirled and collided. Planets rotated their rings, and somehow, he'd brought the two of them into a ravine of sorts with huge towering chucks of rock creating a cliff face.

"We have to keep going, angel," Crowley gasped, stumbling to his feet, even as the exhaustion pressed on him, pushing him flat. He hadn't been able to hold onto his larger form without collapsing, and now he struggled to walk, his legs loose as if he couldn't remember what it meant to have feet.

"We need to rest," Aziraphale pointed out in a voice that brooked no argument—it was the Ritz or bust. The angel gathered him up, dragging him toward the russet-toned rocks, and Crowley pressed his forehead to Aziraphale's shoulder, trying to gather courage. He felt the stick of blood. His fingers pressed into Azirahpale's seeping wound, overcome with a need to fold his mouth over it, claim what had been lost bit by bit. Reassure himself with his human tongue and snake scent that they were still alive.

"Climb, my dear," Aziraphale huffed, helping him up and over the craigs, Aziraphale's hand clenching his elbow, steering them around boulders, deeper into the coverage of the cliff face. Crowley looked down at the ravine, saw the broom-sweep marks his serpent body had left on the ground—a distinguished ‘S’ that had slithered over the ground and immediately disappeared.

"They'll know," he said, pointed, and felt a shiver work down his body. "Tracks."

"Don't worry about that now," Aziraphale said, his voice breathless, following Crowley's pointed finger. "I'll take care of it. Crowley, you're shaking."

"Cold," Crowley whispered and the icy whisper inside him began to feel like an endless spasm. He couldn't feel his fingers, couldn't feel his body anymore. Hell was warm, he never had to worry about being space-frozen, star-starved. Aziraphale's arms tightened around him. What would Crowley do without him, the demon wondered dreamily.

"Probably still be safe in Hell," Aziraphale answered under his breath. Crowley hadn't realized he'd spoken out loud. Aziraphale ducked and dragged them both into a small cave. Under the cover of darkness, they both collapsed, sagging against the wall.

"Darknessss," Crowley hissed, and if he couldn't sun his celestial serpent body against the roiling bursts of a sun, he'd settle for somewhere hidden, somewhere safe, where he couldn't be seen. He felt hands push at his face again, framing his cheeks, touching the slowing pulse under his jaw.

"Snakes need warmth," Aziraphale said to himself, "and here we are on some godforsaken plane without a tree in sight. You don't happen to have a bit of brimstone in this bag, do you? Touch of hellfire?"

"Would burn you," Crowley stated. _Of course_ he wouldn't bring a piece of Hell with him. _Of course_ he wouldn't put Aziraphale within a mile of flames that would gobble him up and leave Crowley with nothing. Stupid angel.

"And any heavenly light would turn you to ash." Aziraphale pursed his lips.

"Rock and a hard place."

"You need to be warmed, Crowley. Think. It's imperative."

"You think, it's your turn. I did my part." Crowley spread his hands in defeat and pitched to the side the cold suddenly gripped him, rendering him immobile. He clamped down to stop his chattering teeth, but a soft whimper still escaped. Aziraphale pet his head alarmingly, telling him to talk to him, keep his eyes open _, do you remember when this and do you remember when that,_ and Crowley didn't want to talk, he pouted, he wanted to wind his way around the angel and close his eyes, and sleep and—

His body rocked, was being moved flat on the ground. Aziraphale slotted in close, his arms tight around Crowley, holding him steady and strong. He placed Crowley's hands on his chest, and Crowley's fingers spanned the angel's torso, stroking the mass of white snake scars on Aziraphale's skin, smelling the metallic tang of _hurt,_ tasting the panicked thrum of _urgency,_ and what about Aziraphale's honor here, what about this felt like it might lead to a Falling, huh? But Crowley couldn't say any of those things, couldn't rally anything human but hiss in pleasure as a delightful radiance of heat poured from Aziraphale's body.

"I am heavenly fire," Aziraphale whispered into Crowley's hair. Wings fluttered around him, another layer surrounding them. "Took a page out of humanity's book. Burn that fire, transform that matter to heat."

"S'good," Crowley mumbled into the angel's chest before the world disintegrated around him, piece by piece falling away into complete unconsciousness.


	5. Chapter 5

_I'm feeling the eyes of the fallen, they're watching me_

_They make me see, they make me see_

_I'm feeling the pain how you break them and make them bleed_

_You make them bleed. You make them bleed._

"It's ineffable," Aziraphale finished and clasped his hands behind his back. He rocked on his tan loafers with a small wiggle, as he usually did when he thought he'd won an argument. Crowley stretched his lips into a wide smile to match the angel's, grinning like a fool as shock danced within Gabriel's purple eyes. _Try to think beyond that bit of logic_.

Beside Gabriel, Beelzebub shifted, their eyes squinting at Crowley. "This is not what Hell planned," they sounded out, slowly. "We've been meaning to defeat our enemies for centuries. Storm Heaven and make all Her angels Fall. Make all the realms suffer."

"Exactly." Gabriel's finger shot out and pointed at the demon. "That's exactly right. This thing you’re proposing is not _the_ Plan." He waved his hands at Aziraphale. "We _will_ crush the demons. Earth is nothing but a battlefield. A hunk of rock. You think God would let us defile Heaven with War? God placed that combat zone for us to destroy all who defied Her."

"That's my home you're talking about!" Adam shouted. Standing between Aziraphale and Crowley, the Antichrist's boyish curls waved in the slight breeze. Crowley noted that the child's fists had curled. Fighting stance. "I'm gonna grow up with the trees all gone and the climate all bust, but that's still something that can be helped, that's still something that can be healed. Time and energy and sacrifice and all that."

Crowley’s plants suddenly leapt to his mind. What, was the Antichrist going to bully the Earth into planetary submission?

"Shut up," Gabriel snarled, spitting out the word. "Ineffable? The entirety of my existence is now ineffable? Humans speak of destiny—they write about it and pray about it, God, how they _all_ pray, and you, Aziraphale, think we're made of the same stuff?" A soft huff of disbelief. A shake of the head. "Our whole purpose is to win this War."

"War is ineffable," Beelzebub agreed, almost gently.

Behind them, War spread her blood red lips.

Crowley desperately wanted to glance at Aziraphale. Dread bounced between them—their trick nothing but a blunder. He knew Aziraphale's smile of triumph would've downturned gently by now, the soft moue of his lips ready to disagree with Gabriel.

"M'not gonna let you lot ruin it all," Adam murmured in a low voice, the vibration of power trembling throughout the Air Force Base. "Not gonna let this _stupid_ fight destroy my friends. My home. My parents. My Dog."

"Don't you understand? There doesn't have to be a War—" Aziraphale sputtered.

"We are nothing but the heralds to cleanse the realm of demons. Our brothers up there," Gabriel's finger pointed to the wide blue sky, "were stabbed in the _back._ Peace was taken from you by _him_ ." The finger moved to Crowley, a pointed arrow of damnation. "Do you hear me, Aziraphale? He took everything good and turned it into rot. That stupid snake ruined the one good place we had left. And you want me to stop because I don't understand Her Plan? I am _not_ rudderless. I am _not_ without purpose."

Crowley’s sense of the Horseman grew. His nostrils flared, absorbing the decay of pollution, the raw meat of war, the ketosis breath of famine, the undisturbed cavernous stillness of Death. Gabriel drew his sword and Crowley reached for Aziraphale. Grabbed the angel's wrist tightly. _I have you,_ he thought, _whether you like it or not. Alpha Centauri. Yell at me later, I'll gladly take your wrath, angel._

Gabriel's blade slammed into Beelzebub's stomach, sliding to the hilt. Twisted. The demon gasped, doubled over as Gabriel wrenched the blade back out from their body. Aziraphale yanked one hand from Crowley and immediately stepped forward, his hand cupping over Adam's eyes, but the Antichrist had already seen too much.

"Stop it!" Adam screamed, his voice breaking at the end in a sob. "Stop, please, stop. Violence is not the answer!

Beelzebub clenched their teeth, and transformed into a swarm of flies, fleeing Gabriel’s next strike with ease and sinking into the pavement, limping back towards Hell. To call to arms the soldiers. To open the floodgates, send the demons to Earth with their toads and pustules and plague _. Look at the wound, look at the first blood drawn._ Crowley grabbed Aziraphale, pulled the angel's shoulder back to turn him around. “Come with me, angel. _Now.”_

Together, the Horsemen grinned at him. Could it be they were here for the destruction of Heaven and Hell? Not Earth? Crowley's heart sang a song of panic and terror, the same one composed earlier in a burning bookshop, in a pub where empty bottles covered the table, in a Bentley roaring with flames. _Despair. Loneliness. Wreckage. Death._ Those were his personal horsemen, but he'd wanted this all to end as a symphony, not a dirge.

"I wish you were never here! We're all better off without you! I won't let you hurt my home anymore," Adam shouted. A dark red thrum of power emanated from his body, something deep and terrifying, like an unstoppable universal earthquake. Like a white dwarf star, becoming overfull with power, uncertain how to contain it, until it releases into a brutal supernova.

Crowley hung the stars, once. His hair, a flaming red, streamed behind him as a nebula. His fingertips glowing as he knit the constellations, never dropping a stitch. Now, he'd hide behind those celestials named for human myths, tuck his angel behind the pillars of eternity, let them both become drunk on meteor showers. They didn't need human forms there—only the unfurled darkness of a demon's true form hovering around the pulsating light of his divine angel.

For once, Aziraphale didn't fight him. He folded as Crowley flung his arm around the angel, as Crowley dragged him forward and away from Gabriel, picking up speed and running away from Adam, anywhere but away from here and their failure.

After all, he’d seen a supernova before. The explosion of matter twinkling across the velvet sky. The shining light of death. They wouldn’t stick around to see another one, especially not here.

"You won't hurt this place anymore," Adam chanted. "Earth is too good for angels and demons. It's meant for humans and dolphins and Atlantis and good witches, not horrid things like _you."_

The ground shook underneath their feet, rolling like a wave. Aziraphale's hand tightened in his. The car, the car was a pile of burnt rubbish, where would they go—

_"You aren't welcome here anymore."_

Banishment. The gut punch of it, the heart being torn out from under the ribs. The pavement lurched and splintered. Crowley stumbled, skidded on hands and knees, felt the burn of road rash burn strip away his skin. Aziraphale's hand slipped from his, even as hard as they clung together. His sunglasses flung from his head, bouncing as the ground opened up. A spell wound around his limbs—identifying him as demon, as a foe—and then a hard wrench, like a fish being yanked out of the ocean. His hands clamped over the sunglasses, dragging them closer, even as he reached for Aziraphale—nothing.

Reality splintered and suddenly he gripped sparkling white sand. His sunglasses, now fine black dust, floated from his palms and away into the menacing sky full of shooting stars, but it didn't matter, where was Aziraphale _, angel, where have you gone—_

Gabriel. Sword in hand. He reached down and grabbed Aziraphale who’d been flung far from Crowley—his angel was too limp, why was his body so limp, was that blood pooling across his face, coating the sand? The blade arched over the Principality of Eden.

"No," Crowley screamed. He lurched to his feet and began to run towards them. "No!"

Gabriel smiled at him—something too wide, too full of teeth—as a beam of blue light erupted around the two angels. In a flash, they were gone, leaving Crowley behind, screaming into the galaxy, screaming at Her for taking everything away from him _again,_ screaming until he tasted blood and realized there was nothing left. No Earth, no Aziraphale, and he wished down to the bottom of his soul, that there was no Crowley anymore, either.

***

Crowley stuttered awake, reaching for his sunglasses, reaching for his angel, and finding neither.

He shuddered, wrapped in a cocoon of the black cloak he'd thrown over Aziraphale back in the cells of Hell. He huddled into the warmth that slowly leaked away and dug his nose into the fabric, taking great breaths full of that familiar angelic scent he could pick out anywhere. Outside the cave entrance, the stars cast a twinkling glow over the rocks and dunes, but inside, balanced between the liminality of darkness and starlight, Crowley's heart uttered a sigh. He hated waking alone. The nightmare released him slowly, like fingers carefully unclenching, but the despair lingered in his throat, clogging his blood. 

The starlight darkened for a moment and a shape filled the entrance—wings spread out in welcome. The angelic scent strengthened and Crowley clamped down on a ridiculous smile. Somehow, against the odds, they'd escaped.

"Good morning, my dear," Aziraphale whispered softly. Crowley itched to wrap his quickly cooling hands around the angel's torso again, reassure himself that this wasn't a dream. That they'd really made it out of Hell. Somehow, if they failed again, he wasn't sure he'd be able to take it. 

"You can't tell if its morning or not," he said, instead. "Firmament has no sunrise or tea or beds. No grandfather clocks."

"Don't remind me." Aziraphale sat cross-legged in front of Crowley. Their knees brushed. "How do you feel?" The angel reached out, gently pushed the red hair from Crowley's forehead, and thumbed across his cheeks. "I was so dreadfully worried."

"Much better," Crowley said, keeping in line with Aziraphale's hushed tone. "You, on the other hand, look worse for wear."

Black bruises under his eyes like he'd been sleep deprived, even though the angel never needed sleep to begin with. Wan and sickly pale. The cuffs on his wrists clinked and moved up his wrists, revealing red burns on top of the Enochian tattoos. Aziraphale's wings tucked against his back, as if in fear, the feathers lank and dull. His hair had grown out, all the curls tumbling over his forehead, wind-whipped and wild.

"Much like that night in Paris, do you remember?" Aziraphale noted, his eyes darting away from Crowley and back up, smiling just wide enough to make crow's feet. "The miracles I used to make you do."

Crowley snorted a laugh. Oh, drunken angel! The two of them, stumbling through the streets, falling to the floor of someone's flat, forgetting to sober up before passing out cold. _Miracle it away,_ Aziraphale had begged him. _I can't miracle away a hangover, what would Upstairs think?_

Aziraphale reached out again, his hand resting on Crowley's forehead. Reading his temperature. A deep want stirred in Crowley's belly, the kind that ached for the comfort of the bookshop, for the familiarity of his Bentley _, I love the sound of the sea, the wind in my hair, I love—_

"I'm cold," he whispered, instead. Giving in to the need. It stretched him thin over the years, brought him to his knees, imagining this moment. Having Aziraphale alone, having Aziraphale alive. Having him so near.

Aziraphale hummed, indulgent, and slipped under the cloak again, wrapping it around them both like a blanket, close enough Crowley could feel the angel's breath ghost over his cheek. Crowley tentatively poked at the wound on Aziraphale's shoulder. Scabbed over and well, but any sharp movements would open it up again. "You're hurt," he said and hated how it sounded like an accusation. “You should be healing.”

"Being a literal sun for a snake will take it out of you," Aziraphale said, off-hand, making light of it all. "Burned a lot of _midnight oil_ to keep you around a little longer."

Crowley humphed and raised an eyebrow, not in the mood for games. "You know what I mean. You should be resting."

"Too many nightmares. Torture will do that," Aziraphale whispered, "but truly, I am better than I've ever been."

Crowley's throat closed up, the image like a livewire in his mind—the swirling vortex of Aziraphale's angelic form, the way the blue had nearly disappeared forever. "I wish I'd been faster."

"Gabriel told me you died, you know." Aziraphale fingered the ends of a looping red curl lingering between them. "Showed me his bloodstained sword as proof. Said he'd left your charred bones in the sand. I think I finally understood grief, then. Mourning." He looked up, his blue eyes bloodshot and glistening with unshed tears. "I wished I'd said yes, you know. Alpha Centauri. I thought about it endlessly. What it would be like. You and me, among the stars. And then some demon would try to slit my throat, or some angel died in my arms and I was back on the battlefield, no longer lost in my thoughts, and it was like being told you were gone all over again. My heart broke. I did the stupidest things in the War, you know, thinking if your bones belonged in the sand, so did mine. That somehow, I'd join you and find you, even if we were just dust."

"Maudlin, that."

"Incredibly so. But I thought you should know. How sorry I am. How I regret my refusal."

"You didn't trust me, then.” Crowley’s fingers twitched to touch the angel’s chest, feel his heartbeat thudding just underneath his ribs. How he wished to coil around the organ, squeeze the regret right out, replace it with better, happier things. “Doesn’t even matter. Forgotten. Trust me on this, angel."

_Remember the nights in Paris, instead. Remember St. James, how we laughed and smiled and fed the ducks. Don’t remember my foolish attempts at escape, my desperation to convince you to leave. Don’t remember how I failed you. I lost your hand, remember?_

"I _did_ trust you," Aziraphale said, his voice wavering, "but I still had hope. Faith. Now...Crowley, I've done so many terrible things. I'm not the same as I once was. I was on the front lines. Nothing good ever comes out of being so close to that much death. I've killed so many demons."

"And I'm tortured endless angels. That doesn't mean we're bad entities, it just means we’re survivors. We have to survive now."

"What do you have in mind?" Aziraphale shrugged, gesturing with his shoulders around the cave. "Hell will be catching up with us soon. Heaven is nowhere close to being an option. Where do you propose we go? To the ends of the firmament?”

Crowley paused. The idea had always been a well-planned magnificent fantasy, but saying it out loud, well, that would take strength. "Maybe we should find Earth, again."

He loved it when he made Aziraphale get that look, that stunned are-you-out-of-your-mind jaw drop, that wide-eyed shocked amazement. "Adam won't let us in," Aziraphale stammered. "Heaven tried to find Earth once. It's hidden behind the Antichrist's power. It can't be done."

"Think about it," Crowley said, spreading his hands. "We know Adam's name—not just his Antichrist name, but his _actual_ human-given name. We know his age, a good idea on his location. For any other demon, that's the start of a damn good summoning spell. He'll _have_ to respond."

"And what would we say? Please, Antichrist, sir, let us back in?"

"Just you and me," Crowley said, wagging his finger in front of Aziraphale's face. "Jussst usss. We spent six thousand years there and nothing bad—or good—came from our presence. We can convince him. I tempted a woman with fruit; I'm sure I can tempt a fourteen-year old boy to give us the keys."

"He's like a god himself," Aziraphale whispered.

"He's a teenage boy," Crowley said. Aziraphale didn't understand. This was their best option. "We could give him anything he wants. Anything." He took Aziraphale's hands. "What do we have to lose?"

"Everything," Aziraphale said, his voice breaking. "I have everything to lose again. I'm not pure like I was. I have nightmares all the time. I see the battlefield in front of me when I'm awake. Things won't be the same. I don't deserve the Earth."

Crowley gripped the back of Aziraphale's head, pulling him forward until their foreheads rested together. He fought the desire to crack open every piece of Aziraphale that had been taken from him and expose the bloody meat of his trauma, wrap it with demon fire and burn it to a crisp. "I'm not the same, either. But we're better together, yeah? Cancel each other out. We don't have to go it alone, anymore."

Aziraphale wouldn't look at him.

"Humans don't deserve the Earth," Crowley continued, tightening his grip in Aziraphale's blond locks. "You've seen what they've done to each other. Guillotine. Concentration camps. Bombs. We deserve more than this wasteland, whatever we’ve become. Trust me."

The scent of salt filled the air. So close, Crowley watched the tear march down Aziraphale's cheek. He strained against the want to lick the angel clean.

"Yes," Aziraphale whispered. He looked up. Blue to gold. Silence suspended between them, and Crowley lingered as the tear caught on Aziraphale's lips, the way the angel's tongue flickered out to catch it and sweep it away.

The silence suspended, breaths synchronizing, hearts matching, only to be broken by the thrum of war drums.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Next update will be in a couple days since my beta is going on vacation...what world is this. 
> 
> Kudos and comments are now the main sustenance of my life. I thank you for your kindness!
> 
> It's incredible how American I felt writing this...is 'midnight oil' even a British thing? sEnD HeLp :)


	6. Chapter 6

****_ I'm waiting for your last goodbye _

_ 'Cause I'm not over it, not over it _

_ I'm waiting for your last goodbye _

_ The kiss of time _

_ Like thunder screaming out for a flash of lightning _

_ Stars are falling down for God's applause _

_ I'm waiting for the light of your supernova _

_ Your last goodbye _

“Do you hear that?” Crowley asked, his slender nostrils flaring. His lip curled as he sniffed the air, “Smell that?”

Aziraphale followed Crowley’s line of sight, studying the galaxy just outside the cave with narrowed eyes, straining forward to listen. A comet darted across the star-studded blackness as a streak of instant luminescence, immediately snuffed out. “I don’t hear anything," he said with a frown.

“Drums,” Crowley answered, tightening his hand in Aziraphale’s, “I didn’t think they’d find us this quickly.” He flung the cloak off them both, wrapped it tighter around his shoulders and over his head, hiding his rust-colored hair.

“We should do the summoning spell, now.” Aziraphale voice was strained. “I wish we were somewhere safer, but I’m not sure how far we can keep going on the strength we have.”

“It's always now or never, isn’t it?” Crowley snarled, a flavor of injustice rendering his words to acid, liable to spit, dissolve, and burn. “It’s always black and white. Can’t leave well enough alone, can they? Can’t have one moment to catch our breath. Can’t have  _ anything.” _ His lungs were greedy, holding the air like balloons about to pop, committing the moment to memory in the rich bouquet of dirt streaking the angel’s cheeks, in the soft play of illumine on Aziraphale’s curls, in the glow of his blue eyes, the only bit of true Earth sky Crowley had seen in years and years. _ Not yet, _ he wanted to cry.  _ It’s too soon. I’m so scared to fail again. _

“Patience was never Hell’s forte, my dear,” Aziraphale said, hushed, as he slung the bag over his shoulder. His hand plucked at Crowley’s elbow. “They’re fast, but we’re faster. I believe in us. Time is still on our side.”

“I don’t need a pep talk, angel,” Crowley snapped, but he entwined their fingers together anyway. Crowley studied the ravine as they picked their path out of the cave, sidestepping sharp rocks and even sharper inclines, wishing he had the slightest understanding of guerilla warfare or trenches, or  _ anything _ instead of spy tactics and double crossings. Behind him, a scarlet light began to outline the horizon, a thin stretch of fire spilling over the dunes.

“This will be a good spot,” Aziraphale said, stopping at the mouth of the ravine. His eyes flickered around them, taking in the mounds of stardust, the silent desert cut with the thumping of Hell. “We'll have some ground to make a final stand on here.”

“Whatever you say, General.” Crowley bent, his hand digging in the sand to create the first circle of the summoning spell. Huge. Far beyond the ability of chalk. Aziraphale helped, crafting the second side of the arc, meeting him in the middle. Together, they drew the name of the first son of the red earth and first son of the Morning Star: Adam. They carved the ancient symbols for  _ fourteen, _ dug  _ Tadfield _ beside it, crafted  _ Britain _ out of the thin dust. Wrote the letters for Antichrist, siphoning every fact pertaining to Lucifer’s son into the sigil. Crowley felt the circle cinch and tighten with each new addition, like a dreamcatcher taunt and ready to ensnare. A godlike entity, a fourteen-year-old boy, forced to step from his reality into theirs.

The scarlet line poured over the dunes, funneling into the ravine. A faction of a hellspawn army sent to round them up. Make an example of them. Crowley grit his teeth, fighting down wave after wave of dread and fascination as a pack of hellhounds bayed. Satan’s sake, how he hated this. Everything he'd hoped to say, up until this final day, felt like it was in vain. He’d practiced, for Satan’s sake _. I love. _ This couldn’t be a final goodbye. He wouldn’t survive it if it was.

Aziraphale dropped the burlap bag, his sword clasped in his hand, feet shoulder-width apart. “Best hurry, dearest,” he said. “I’ll be useless to help you. All my ethereal powers are bound.” The cuffs clinked down his wrists, the Enochian scrawl scabbed with blisters and chafed skin.

_ Did you get those marks when you transformed sublime light into heat for me? Did saving my life mark you so? _

“Just watch our backs,” Crowley muttered. “Don’t get discorporated.”

“Wouldn’t dream of it. There’s so much more paperwork now than there ever was.”

Crowley lined his feet up at the tip of the circle, facing away from the approaching army of Hell and his angel. His fingertips pushed together as he concentrated, and like the demons barreling through the ravine, he funneled every ounce of power he had into the summoning.

The circle's lines lit with lava. Somewhere behind him, he heard Aziraphale chanting, putting whatever sparks or miracles he could wrench from the bindings into Crowley's spell. A white luminescence infiltrated the lava, swirling within before being consumed. Crowley tried to remember.

Curls. Adam had thick curls. How his youthful body tensed and vibrated with incredible, untrained power. How he stood fearless in the face of his true father and withstood the hatred of demons and angels. Adam defended the Earth—and Crowley adored the Earth—but Adam had defended it _ from _ Crowley as well, had kicked him out because he'd been remotely associated with Hell, had cut him off from everything he loved because he was a byproduct. So yes, he hated the little bastard, but he admired him, if grudgingly. Just another higher power, he supposed, tossing him out of the places he called home. God with Eden. Adam with Earth. 

_ Come to me, Adam. Come to me, Antichrist. I summon you here, at my bequest, at my command. Come to me. Damnit, please, just come to me. _

“Crowley.”

His name, spoken with soft wonder. Crowley didn’t break, tightening his already shut eyes until the summoning’s red brilliance seared through the darkness of his eyelids. He couldn’t stop, not until he heard Adam’s voice. Felt the boy’s presence. Not even for Aziraphale.

The spell strained, the surface stretched like that of a guitar string. One pluck and it would sing.  _ Come to me, Adam. Come to me, Antichrist. I summon you here, at my bequest, at my command. _

A sudden flash like a firecracker erupted in front of him, nearly blinding him. Crowley gasped. Ozone hit his tongue, creeping up alongside the chemical pungent of petrol and the honks of traffic. Crowley’s knees nearly buckled.  _ Earth. _

_ I love my Bentley, the smell of the sea, the wind in my hair— _

Adam emerged from a doorway drawn in orange light. On one side lay the starred firmament. On the other, could that be a hotel room? The boy had grown tremendously in the past three years: his body lanky, his face slenderizing, revealing the first glimpse of a masculine beauty akin to that of his falling star genetics. His sneakers slipped in the sand and a thunderous look covered his face, directed at the demon who'd summoned him. “My mum is going to have a  _ fit,”  _ he said. “We’re on holiday. Visiting friends. She barely believed the excuse I made up to meet with you lot. She thinks I’m being  _ moody. _ She thinks I'm being a  _ teenager.” _

“Adam,” Crowley whispered, his voice hoarse. His heart leapt in his chest, his fingers itching for the door sitting there so casually, as if this wasn’t the Eden they’d been searching for, the holy grail he’d dreamed about.  _ Home. _

“You look dreadful.” Adam’s nose scrunched up in distaste. “This whole place reeks.”

“What a pleasure it is to see you, you’ve grown up.” Aziraphale slipped into the conversation easily, a welcome and grounding presence that Crowley clung to—erasing erratic thoughts of sliding his divine gun against the child's forehead and threatening him until the Antichrist let them through. He wouldn't have the strength to go through with it though, felt it in his instant recoil at the thought. What an easy bluff to call. Just a threat. What kind of demon _ was _ he?

Would this terror and rage festering inside him ever subside?

“Family on holiday, how lovely. Where at?” Aziraphale, ever pleasant, even with their demise fast approaching.  _ Can you help us with our inquiries?  _ Crowley mimicked internally.

“South Downs,” Adam said, glancing suspiciously between them. “Beaches are alright.”

__ _ Like we’ve asked him about drugs or where he was last night,  _ Crowley thought.

“Glad to hear it,” the angel continued, so bloody proper. “Listen, Adam. We’re in a spot of trouble. A bit of a pickle.”

“A pickle?”

“It’s all gone a bit pear-shaped with Hell coming ‘round the mountain, as the Americans like to say. We were wondering if you might be able to, ah, help us out a bit.”

“Take us back to Earth,” Crowley clarified. "With our untimely demise approaching and all." Finger guns out, pointing at Adam, and then throwing his thumbs behind him at Hell's army.

Adam bit his lip. “You can’t just call on me at all hours, you know. Sometimes, I have homework. I'll have school soon. I’m supposed to be with my Dad right now, fishing.”

“And we’re dreadfully sorry about that, but well, Crowley can explain the rest. Think it over. I’ll take care of what’s coming,” Aziraphale finished, his voice soft at Crowley's ear. The angel's hand rested on Crowley’s shoulder, tightening. Crowley reached back, covered Aziraphale's hand in a death grip. Take care of what's coming? What—fight off all of Hell's army alone? Even for Heaven's very successful general, the attempt was hopeless. Aziraphale’s sword moved gently through the air. The drums overwhelmed Crowley like thunder, like that first drop of rain felt on the wall surrounding Eden, how he sought for cover.  _ This can’t be goodbye.  _ His mind dropped into a panicked fugue.  _ This can't be goodbye. _

“You’ll be killed,” Adam said.

Of course the twat had to say it, put that out in the world as if it didn’t matter, and Crowley’s fear tangled in his heart like fishing wire, cutting through his gills, wrapping around his neck noose-tight, making him gasp, suffocate, see the constellations of his life flash before his eyes in the shape of Aziraphale mutilated from the battle, and then just that lighting crack of  _ you’ll be killed— _

“Yes, well. Powers are bound and all that," Aziraphale pointed out. "Not really in anyone's good books anymore."

Adam snapped his fingers. The cuffs fell from Aziraphale’s wrists, the Enochian tattoos unraveling like yarn, collapsing to the ground and then curling like paper turned to ash.

“Great help, that,” Aziraphale said, and tried to remove his hand from Crowley’s shoulder. Crowley turned, the panic blooming into a flower of terrible desperation. Aziraphale’s eyes widened and he reached for the demon, his hands slid along Crowley's jaw, cradling his neck, tilting his chin up. “Don’t look at me like that, my love,” he said softly. “I’ll be back.” He thumbed across Crowley’s mouth.  _ “I’ll be back.” _

For the first time, Crowley glimpsed the demon horde tumbling toward them. In minutes, they’d be overrun, but he imprinted on this new Aziraphale, the general he’d never seen before. It wouldn’t be like before, nothing of  _ I’ll never speak to you again. _ No, this time it was a woven promise.  _ I'll be back. _

This stupid angel was Crowley’s moon, all craters and feral show of teeth, bold and white amidst the bioluminescence of spells and Hell. And Crowley was the Satan-damned ocean, unable to resist that calling, his whole essence the ebb and flow of the tide connected to the whims of that angelic planet.

“You better,” he said.

Aziraphale slipped away. Crowley shut his eyes briefly at the loss of contact. Aziraphale backed away from him, a war-hungry smile lighting up his face as a golden glow started to pulse in his chest and expand, encompassing the throbbing hate of Hell’s army. Aziraphale grew in size, his corporeal body unzipping, his angelic form emerging like a pillar of light. Huge wings unfurled, spreading out so wide they blocked out the sky—the sun, the angel could be the galaxy’s sun—the puckered, ruined eyes rolling as if being woken. The divine light of Heaven fell like a hot burst over Crowley, but he strained to keep looking. Aziraphale’s face twisted, the dragon and lion screaming with a berserker’s rage into the face of their enemies. Finally, just before Crowley’s eyes forced shut, he saw the halo around his angel’s forehead, smaller gorgeous white wings framing his golden curls below a circlet of hallowed fire.

An explosion, like a rocket launching, like a volcano erupting, forced Crowley to his knees. He wheezed in a position of penance.

“Bloody hell,” Adam breathed from behind him.

Crowley forced his eyes open, saw that the first line of attacking demons had been smote with Aziraphale’s fury. Scorch marks darkened the stardust where they’d once stood. Aziraphale’s sword hung like a toothpick in his eye-covered hands, but soon it strengthened with sanctified fire, the blade expanding to match the angel’s size.  _ No wonder he’d been entrusted with the first flaming sword,  _ Crowley thought, nearly senseless, watching as Aziraphale hefted his sword back, cleaving through the next line of demons like crushing ants.  _ Fearless. _

The black void, outlined in bright blue, swirled where his human heart would be. Aziraphale glanced behind him, endless eyes marching up and down his cheeks—nothing blue here, only blazing golden redemptive light—and he threw himself back into the fight. Crowley hardened his resolve. He couldn’t die today, not under the swarms of hellspawn. He and Aziraphale? They were on the same side. Aziraphale held up his part of their arrangement. It was time Crowley did the same.

He surged to his feet and whipped around to face Adam. The Antichrist’s face was slack in awe, absorbed in the avenging angel in front of him.

“We’re here to ask for your protection,” Crowley said, slipping on his silver tongue, beginning to spin a web of temptation and coercion. “Both Heaven and Hell want us dead—truly dead and destroyed. We won’t survive. You remember, Adam, how we were on Earth’s side? How we tried to avert the Apocalypse?”

Adam’s lips quivered. “I remember. I remember Aziraphale covered my eyes when…when…”

“It can be a lot,” Crowley sympathized. “Holding all of Heaven and Hell back from the Earth. Especially for a boy such as yourself. You shouldn’t be worried about all this nonsense. You should be…acing exams, playing outside, snogging boys or girls, whatever you fancy.”

Adam blushed, and he looked away. “It  _ has  _ been hard. All that extra energy pounding against Earth’s walls. Gives me a headache. Mum says I shouldn't be having so many migraines at this age.”

“You shouldn’t be responsible for all that. That’s a lot to handle.”

“It really is,” Adam said quietly, his voice dropping, an echo of what it would become as he aged.

“Can’t really do all that when the world is in peril. I mean, think of having to abandon a girl on your first date to stop another round of demons from attaching the protective fields you’ve put up. What a mess.”

“It itches, too,” Adam admitted. As if grateful to have someone to talk to about it. “Like a constant buzz in my mind. It never stops.”

“You know,” Crowley stepped forward, trying to drown out the reverberation of death behind him. Tried to stop wondering if his angel was hurt, if the demons had overrun him, if he’d fallen and was bleeding to death. “Aziraphale and I used to have an Arrangement when we were on Earth. Help each other out. Maybe, we could come to an Arrangement with you. Help shoulder some of the burden. We lived on Earth for six thousand years. We love it there. Wouldn’t want any harm to come to it.”

Adam’s eyes narrowed, but his mouth pouted. Still uncertain. But not unwilling.

“We’re very adept,” Crowley continued, wrapping his words slowly around the Antichrist, feeling his innocence in the middle of his coils.  _ Tighten just enough. _ “Aziraphale? He used to be the Principality of the Easter Gate over Eden. Real good at guarding things. Only thing that ever got in was me, because I’m that clever. He kept the walls locked up safe and tight, kept everything bad out. Sure, I might've done some tempting of my own, but he let me off the hook because we’re best friends. Like your friends. You’d trust them to the ends of the world, wouldn’t you?”

Adam nodded, his foot drawing a line in the sand. “You want to guard Earth for me?”

“Principalities of Earth,” Crowley said, his lips spreading in a smile. “Nice title, isn’t it? We’re the smartest angel-demon duo around. We can strengthen the fields, patch new barriers, both of us are full of magic. We could defend the Earth against anything. Nothing would ever get past us. You’d have to let us back in, of course, but think of the benefits.”

“My mum is already so cross with me,” Adam fretted. "She's an expert at hovering. How can I tell her that I have to pop out to save the world,  _ again?" _

“Your mum never has to be cross again,” Crowley interjected smoothly. “We’d be like your godfathers. Guardians. Earth’s guardians.”

_ I’ll give you anything. Ask it of me. I’ll give it to you.  _ The promise dripped from his voice, golden like Aziraphale, slick and iridescent like snake scales and oil _. Anything. _

“You wouldn’t ruin the world?”

“Cherish it, more like,” Crowley said, his hands starting to quiver. The battle roared behind him, but he held Adam’s eyes. He couldn’t turn now, not when the coils were so tight. Not when he arced, ready to strike, inject conviction within the Antichrist’s veins.  _ Trust me. Trust me. Let us in. _

“You’d take care of all this nonsense, at least until I’m older?”

“Of course. Our lives are in your hands.”

Adam looked beyond him. His lips pursed into a thin line and Crowley felt the silence suspended between them, and he let the spiraled braid of his words twist just a touch more, tighten just enough to gasp.

“Ten minutes,” Adam said. “You get ten minutes to get through the door and then I’m closing it forever. Don’t be big like that either.” He pointed behind Crowley. “Earth can’t take it.”

Crowley dipped his head in minute acknowledgement before spinning around, transforming into a snake so quickly he felt faint. Dropping to the ground, he felt a kind of horrific awe fill him as he slithered straight for the huge angel fighting for his life.

Bodies littered the sand. Great burning embers that had once been demon limbs filled the air with the scent of crisped flesh. Aziraphale swung his sword, puncturing the hellhounds that leapt on him, flinging bodies human-small and occult-large across the starlit night. Blood dripped from his wings, one hung at an unnatural bent angle. Smaller demons cut at his ankles and feet, trying to sever his tendons.

Demons fell underneath Crowley’s gigantic sweeping tail, flung from his path as he slithered right for his angel. Hellspawn cut into his scales as he wound around Aziraphale’s legs, writhing up to wrap around the huge angelic soul like a blanket. The divine light seeped into every bit of him, an icy cold burn illuminating each armored scale. His jaw unhinged in agony, but he squeezed, rendering Aziraphale immobile for a span of breath before launching off of his shoulders, landing in the dust.

Bodies crunched beneath his landing. A plume of dust exploded around him like a volcanic ash, obscuring the glowing doorway for a moment. Ten minutes, ten minutes only, time ticking by so fast, yet what things he could accomplish with ten minutes— _ follow me, angel, don’t lose my hand. _

Aziraphale understood, and with a roaring battle cry, flung the rest of the demons off him. His thunderous footsteps vibrated the ground like earthquakes and Crowley’s body trembled in response, the tremors seeming to reach the very core of the firmament. Crowley started to transform, skin instead of scales, limbs shooting out of his sleek body, red hair pooling down his back.

Just there. A bright glow like sunlight, like freedom, like salvation. In the back of his mind, the glimpse of Earth filled him with the same near-forgotten feeling of being born of God. Seeking longed-for protection.

From behind him, the rumbling footsteps lessened in intensity. Nearly there now and it had been so long— _ I love my Bentley, I love the wind in my hair, the smell of the sea— _

His knees buckled beneath him, a force driving him to collapse, even as agony exploded throughout his chest. A bellow ripped from his throat and his hands wrapped around the demonic spear sticking out through his chest.  _ Death. _

Aziraphale skidded in the sand beside him, half-transformed, his multiple eyes still lit with divinity. Suddenly, his wings whipped around them, shielding them both as a volley of arrows thudded around them. Two arrows penetrated through his wings, an arrowhead grazing Crowley’s cheek. Aziraphale’s hand clamped over the spear and Crowley grinned at him like a madman, feeling blood coating his fangs. He wished he could speak, but his mouth hadn’t yet transformed. He didn’t think he’d need words, not this soon.

So much blood. It drenched down his front. A ragged gasp. Too wet. If he was discorporated here, by Hell’s hand, he’d be transported back to the Pit. He wouldn’t escape a second time. Better to be destroyed by holy water, cleansed by celestial hands, driven through by Aziraphale’s blade completely than return there. He opened his mouth to say it.

_ Kill me. Go. Ten minutes. _

But he had no tongue yet learned in human linguistics; he could only hiss. Aziraphale braced Crowley against him, gripped the end of the spear and broke it off. He uttered a soft huff of pain.

The portal gleamed, still open, but it had thinned considerably. Earth was on the other side. Hell hot on their heels. Crowley’s black scaled hand clung to Aziraphale’s shoulder, tears pressing hot to his eyes.  _ Run, you stupid angel. Leave me here, I’ve failed you again, just run and go, please. _

_ There’s nothing left for you here. _

Aziraphale hefted Crowley up. Numbness raced down his arms. A group of demons picked over their fallen, beginning to widen into a circle, sensing  _ weakness, _ their belief in success tainting the overwhelming taste of blood in Crowley's mouth. He couldn’t transform, his power had been sapped, and he sagged against the angel. He clenched the spear, his fingers slick with his own blood, when Aziraphale’s strength disappeared from his side.

A rising void began to climb the edges of his vision and he gasped, watching Aziraphale scramble for something in the sand—the burlap bag. The gun glowed in Aziraphale's hands, the demonic symbols along the barrel flaring to life. The angel slammed a new clip in place.

Crowley screamed, reaching up to yank the weapon out of Aziraphale's hands—this was pure Hell, no angel could hold it and not suffer the consequences.

The first shot rendered the world mute. The round crashed into a demon's skull, incinerating him on contact. Round after round exploded from the gun, the melding of an occult mechanism with holy bullets devastating the advancing demons—what remained of the army. The wildflower scent of a helpful miracle ensured each bullet met its mark. Ash danced in the air.

"Keep going," Aziraphale commanded, his fist tight on Crowley, shoving him closer to the portal. The doorway was barely open, just enough to slip past. Numbness continued to encompass Crowley's pain, even as the world sloshed side to side, the darkness rising faster, cutting out everything but the door and his angel.

A mechanical release. A satisfying click. A new clip. Aziraphale's hand, wrapped around the gun, poised alongside the trigger, began to melt, the skin blackening and peeling back.

_ Give the gun to me. You can't touch it, how are you touching it? _

Crowley remembered putting those small capsules in front of chained angels, coaxing their divinity into them, welding the small rounds together. How the sparks had blistered his fingertips, leaving them stinging for days. Perhaps those ruined angels reaped revenge now, their essence ravaging those who once eradicated them. Did they hear the screams? Was that charred flesh?

The skeletal lines of Aziraphale's hand pulled the trigger. Bones, black as charcoal, the rattle of scraping fingerbones on metal. The trigger still steady. Aziraphale calmly reloaded the last clip, each shot like a shooting star, hot with the occult, exploding with the ethereal, drenching the firmament in gunfire. The portal was a fingersbreath away. Crowley reached for the doorway.

The gun clicked empty.

The portal—nothing but a streak of light.

Aziraphale threw the gun. A demon growled and launched for them, jaws wide open in attack, sword poised to kill. Crowley gripped Aziraphale's wings, where the root melted into his back, and catapulted them forward, tumbling them both together into the last glimmer of the doorway before it sealed up tight. 


	7. Chapter 7

_When all the days go by in a firelight_

_We'll never fade out in the night_

_And we are estranged, we're drawn to the flame_

_We are like fire to the rain_

_Isn't it strange that love is in the way?_

_It never goes away, never goes away_

The firmament closed with a pop as a new unknown power enveloped them—something weaker than God, but stronger than anything milling among the Fallen—and spit them out. Crowley tumbled to the ground in a flail of limbs. Agony sprouted through his chest, the seeking roots shooting down his arms and deep into his lungs, but underneath his hand— _green._ Rain drummed down on him. Verdant hills and moors extended out around them. Mist floated like a low-laying blanket, wispy fingers spreading out like tendrils of lace.

A hysterical laugh caught in his throat and he reached for Aziraphale, sprawled and shivering on the greenery, and grabbed a fistful of his feathers. Not caring if it hurt, only to assure himself that they were there—they had made it through together. Tilting his head back, he screamed into the sky with triumph. Blood pounded out of him, but there were clouds, gray skies, black slugs resting in the bright green foliage, his angel beside him with a hand glowing like an ember of hellfire.

Aziraphale sat up, exhaustion marking deep lines around his eyes and mouth. Crowley dragged him closer, his hands cupping that gorgeous face—the eyes all along Aziraphale's cheeks and forehead blinking and focusing directly on him. The divine light had faded from them all, leaving them blue as the sky, blue as the ocean. The hallowed halo still burned with sublime light above his head. If anything was worth worship, it was his angel, Crowley's fearless, rebellious, holy, gorgeous angel, and he didn't care if it was selfish—the black void had begun to encompass his vision again. Regret was something that couldn't exist now, not with Death's robe so close. Another firmament, coming to steal him into a star-filled night.

He was starting to hate the stars.

One hand dove into Aziraphale's white curls. His lips crashed against the angel's, angling just so to ensure a perfect fit. His other hand slid along Aziraphale's jawline, pulling him closer. Aziraphale opened for him without a second thought, and oh, how they matched, full of urgency—he knew he should've asked _is this what you want,_ but he couldn't leave this existence without knowing what Aziraphale tasted like. Rain ran into their kiss. An ancient binding, this rain. It bound them on the Eastern Gate. It sealed them together now.

A strum of desire rippled throughout him, like a rock being thrown into a still pond. The ripples surged through him, and quickly surpassed this mortal coil, echoing out further and further until they reached the deep-sea darkness of his true soul. Something never felt before crashed over him—Aziraphale as a pale blue light floating within the bone-crushing pressure of Crowley, filling him with a desperate need to claim and give and take and love—

His demonic nature had never coveted something like this before. Had never sought to claim...what, a mate? A partner? Meld his essence with another? This wasn't just human love—it was eternal, forged in the only way he knew how. A basic instinct. Sometimes, he forgot that he was a Fallen angel, that the way he loved was simply different than an Earthen snake, bird, whale or human. It didn't matter. He kissed Aziraphale with their victory, kissed him open mouthed. They were together. For as long as he could, until Death took him.

He pulled back, holding Aziraphale's face, memorizing the way all his eyes fogged with the kiss, his lips red, wet, and parted. This. This would be the last thing he saw before he, what, discorporated? Died forever?

He could say it now. Now that they had come to the end.

"I love you," he whispered, his mouth memorizing Aziraphale's. "I love you."

"Don't you dare," Aziraphale hissed with a venom Crowley had never sampled before. "You're not leaving me."

Aziraphale's hand flattened against his chest and yanked the spear out completely. Crowley let out a mewed cry, feeling his heartbeat flood his head like a pounding headache. Aziraphale's other hand—nothing but charred fleshless bone, fingers sliding against each other like the clink of piano keys with their stings cut—pressed into Crowley's wound. Crowley doubled over in agony, but a familiar, welcome heat rolled from the angel's hand, cauterizing the wound. His body sucked at the warmth—Hell's healing heat partnered with an angelic miracle—siphoning the burning fire from Aziraphale into him.

The void backed away. A rush of energy, like a second wind, filled him to the brim. He touched the wound, saw Aziraphale's skeleton handprint seared into his flesh, a kind of brand he savored.

"Your wings," he sounded out, touching the white plumage. Again, that inevitable twinge of desire deeper than this human form could fathom. Place your wings against him, let him slide into you, let his hands penetrate the wound again—

Crowley shook his head, dazed. Aziraphale lifted his broken wings, trying to shield them yet again from the rain, but Crowley hissed a fierce negative, bringing his own black wings into this plane of existence. Under the dark canopy of dark feathers, they both shivered, the cold and wet seeping them to the core.

"We need to find shelter," Aziraphale whispered, his fingerbones stroking the stretched skin of Crowley's wound.

"We shouldn't use miracles," Crowley whispered. "They might be able to sense it. Could pinpoint us. I'm not ready to hold up my end of our new Arrangement with Adam."

Aziraphae hummed in agreement, and began listing into the slender lines of Crowley's wings. "Wily old serpent," he sounded out. The eyes along his face blinked in and out, finally absorbing fully into his skin, leaving only the two. "Where do you think we are?"

"South Downs?" Crowley guessed. "Could be Scotland for all I know. We need..." Crowley stuttered at the sudden impossibility of it, "a hotel?"

Aziraphale's lips parted in an exhausted smile. "Not a cave?"

"I'll go anywhere with you," Crowley said softly. He covered his mouth. He hadn't meant to say that. An abyss existed inside him, a pit of his demonic essence, a piece of Hell that had mutated him from angel to beast. It saw Aziraphale and demanded to be set free. Pull the angel against him, curl into him, tuck long black nails under the white feathers—

He shuddered against the intensity of the thought and looked away. No sunglasses to hide behind. All his defenses had been stripped from him.

"Good," Aziraphale said, "I intended it that way."

The patter of rain lessened. Crowley spread his wings just enough to see beyond, a thrill of delight that the firmament no longer lay before them. "I think there's a road down there." He squinted through the fog beginning to roll lower and closer. "It must lead somewhere."

***

They found a broken-down car, abandoned on the side of the road. With a nudge and a prayer, the engine roared to life. Crowley packed his body into the tiny Fiat, the stick shift a welcome weight beneath his hand.

Aziraphale clambered in, wincing as he forced his broken wings from Earth's reality. Sweat peppered the angel's face and he fell asleep immediately, something that made Crowley panic silently. The angel never slept. Ever.

At a petrol station, Crowley pulled over and turned the car off. Aziraphale cradled his ruined hand, trembles coating his body. Crowley's hand hovered over Aziraphale's arm, but Hell had tainted the angel too much this day. He pulled away and got out. Wrapping the shredded cloak around himself, he went inside. A bell dinged a welcome. A rack of sunglasses sat near the counter. He nicked a black set, ripping off the tag and shoving them on his face. A clerk bustled to the counter from a back room—an older woman with a kind smile.

"Direct me to a hotel?" he asked.

"Oh dear," she said, wringing her hands. "Are you here for one of those concerts? The rock kind?"

Crowley tried to smile and steadied himself on the counter. "Reckon I am. Just moved here, see. Looking for a place to spend the night until I can find something permanent."

"Oh, so sorry to assume. I simply don't understand these modern fashions. Old-fashioned, me."

He chuckled at her terrible joke, not because it was funny per se, it was just so _Earth._

She paused as if considering something. "You're actually looking for something long-term?" she asked, her teeth digging into the lipstick stain of her lower lip. "I've been meaning to let out a cottage, you know. My son just moved out. Employed in London, of all places. The place is all furnished, but a bit dusty. Maybe, if you're still looking for something, we can discuss the particulars."

Crowley pulled out an occult wallet, thick with quid. "How much?"

"It needs to be cleaned, love. Don't you want to see it first?"

"Nope," Crowley said, popping the P. "I'll pay in advance."

The woman gnawed her lip, fighting against what was proper. She held out her hand. Crowley handed her the bank notes. She told him the address, handed him a key, and he shook her hand. "A.J. Crowley," he said.

"Pleased to meet you. This is most peculiar."

"Think of it as a miracle. I'm in need, you're in need. Pop by next week and we'll sort out the paperwork."

The paperwork was already signed and sitting on her desk. She'd find it in the morning and curse her feeble mind for forgetting that he had signed it right there and then.

She nodded. His lips parted in a heart-stopping grin as he left, pleased with the blessings of lady luck. He might even call it a miracle of sorts, except those didn't exist anymore. Climbing back into the car, he slid his hand over Aziraphale's forehead, cursing his earlier hesitation. Hot to the touch.

The gears stuck and slipped as he pulled back into traffic. Crowley yearned for his Bentley, knowing his trusted car had most likely been rendered into scrap metal by now. "Hold on, angel," he whispered.

***

"Where the bloody Heaven are we," Crowley muttered under his breath as he hunched in the seat, peering through the glass. The wind screens could barely keep up with the pounding rain. The gray sky had turned a thunderous navy-black as the Fiat coughed up the country roads. Exhaust and fumes lingered in the air, the Fiat's tank running on empty, and this little pony wasn't as strong as his Bentley, couldn't have driven to the stars on nothing but imagination and willpower alone.

One hand rested on Aziraphale's leg, his tapered fingers drumming on the angel as if it might wake him up. The stone cottage emerged out of the darkness—no wonder the proprietor's son had escaped to London—this place was in the middle of nowhere. As soon as he parked and stepped out, running around to the other side, he was soaked through. The siren sound of the ocean called from beyond the chalk hills, and after all his years in Hell, after decades among the streets of London, the grasping roar of saltwater, left him momentarily breathless. _Earth._ What other little noises and scents would overwhelm him?

He patted his hand against Aziraphale's cheeks hard, his heart soaring when the angel turned blue eyes on him. A soft smile of recognition. Crowley helped Aziraphale out of the car, wincing as his spear wound tugged in pain, and together, they stumbled into the small cottage. Shuttered windows kept the home shrouded in darkness. Crowley stoppered a wild laugh as he took in the tartan armchair, the chaise longue, the empty bookcases lining the walls—perfected to Aziraphale's style.

Aziraphale landed hard on his knees, his breath harsh and ragged. Crowley knelt on the hardwood floors beside him. An orange and black blaze illuminated the charcoal sticks of the angel's hand—an ember that simply wouldn't die. Hellfire still festered within him. Crowley brought the angel's hand back to his spear wound, and focused, felt the ravenous scraps of his power open wide jaws for the inferno taste of Hell. The light in Aziraphale's skeletal hand stuttered, dampened, as Crowley's wound sealed further, becoming nothing but a puckered scar.

Again, that second-wind rush. He relished in the brimstone filling his mouth, the flavor of ash. Deep inside him, the primordial backbone of his being—the Fallen angel—rumbled in alarm: _hurt._

Aziraphale's head rolled. Fever bright eyes stared at Crowley, the white bloodshot. "I can’t keep it at bay any longer," he said. "Hell—it _gnashes."_

Inside him, the primordial urge rose again, fighting like an instinct long since dampened. Were there prehistoric angels? Angels who, like humans, evolved from one ultimate source, some broken rib that God’s firstborn? Where did that legend live? Where was this primal instinct coming from?

_I'm a demon,_ Crowely thought. _I'm a Fallen angel_. Sometimes, he forgot that the two were the same thing.

He unzipped his human form. A shadowed snake coiled within the room, much too large for so small a space, but he shouldn't be bound by Earth physics and laws. What did he look like at as his purest self? His masks were endless: spitfire human, celestial snake, soulless torturer, unforgivable angel. He poured his demonic essence into Aziraphale, igniting the occult ember sickening the angel. _Pestilence._

Aziraphale watched him with bluebell eyes, robin eggs eyes, eyes vast and full. Crowley dug into the fragile bones of Aziraphale's hand, scraping at the cinders, coaxing out the ingot of perdition. Aziraphale's divinity coated it with shine. Like the pearl of an oyster. For once, Crowley thought of Hell as beautiful.

Plucking it out with long delicate claws, he studied the ore. Small like bacteria. Viruses. Turn away from their power and they'd take your life. He swallowed it, felt the fire settle in his belly and churn with renewed magic.

Pale tendons slithered around Aziraphale's charcoal stick-fingers like roots seeking deep beneath the ground. Muscle followed, strengthening the long lines, padding the heel with healthy fat. A protective, translucent skin sheathed the new hand.

Crowley leaned back, his many slitted eyes peering out of the shadows of his true form. A black cat watching in the dark, identified only be the sheen of a thousand golden gazes. Aziraphale's jaw opened in awe. The fever pulled back from his cornflower blues and Crowley realized with a pinprick of terror that the angel had never _truly_ seen him.

Completely exposed. No human sleeve. He'd only ever been this open before the Fall, when he placed stars in the chaos, conducting the cosmic particles to plume into pillars—to have them mimic his coils and golden light. To put a little of himself into his creations.

A look crossed Aziraphale's face—excitement? Elation? Suddenly, the angel unfurled in response, his true form slipped from his corporeal shell and slid against the darkness of Crowley in one long undulation. Crowley gasped, stunned, as Aziraphale continued to wrap around and through him as tendrils. He'd never done this before, didn't know what this even _was_ and a sorrow shook him, his inadequacy to know his own species, to piece together his own longings and wants.

_You're going too fast for me_ , he whimpered. The hated sentence had come back to haunt him. _I don't understand what this means—_

Crowley's uncertainty bounced between them. Aziraphale didn't answer in earthly words, his light licking into the darkness of Crowley's mouth with urgent demand, frantic to soothe. _Angels binding_ , Aziraphale thought at him. _You haven't—you don't know?_

Frustration shook Crowley's soot-black wings, the sound like wind rushing through trees. The Fall wasn't only devastating because of the loss of Her grace—but also because of this banishment, these cut ties from his identity. _Know what?_ he asked.

_This is forever,_ Aziraphale whispered. _This is forever._

And then the angel pulled back gently, lifting the intensity.

Damn his doubt, a hex on his endless questions, and if he couldn't scream _why_ at others, he directed the demand endlessly at himself. Now, he'd lose this too, he'd lose his angel because of this mysterious addiction to self-preservation and to understand, and when, oh, when would he ever learn?

Aziraphale's light cradled Crowley's demon-gloom, stroking gently, sucking bruises of luminescence along his form. _Here,_ Aziraphale said, _I’ll show you._ _Don't be afraid._

Six thousand years spilled around Crowley. Words spoken, words withheld, smiles stifled, smiles bursting, the soft hours willed away in the bookshop with wine and company, his hand clenching in fear as his demon-love recklessly drove over blacktop, the node that lit in his chest whenever he saw of flash of red hair—

Battle. War flooded him. Regret, oh how he regretted, how his fear had chained him to the coddling of blind faith. An endless desert in a damned firmament. A yearning. Give me golden coins to barter for my soul, lay his yellowed eyes over my own as I die, the humans believed safe passage in the underworld could be bartered for once, and maybe he could bring packets of love with him in the form of round sunglasses, a soft pouting mouth, the skinny hips and long legs of the being that mattered most.

_I've loved you for centuries_ , Aziraphale whispered. The barest of questions lingered— _I know you feel the same._

_But what if you Fall?_ Crowley trembled, that fear greater than love surging between them. When he Fell, he left a crater on impact. He couldn’t imagine leaving such a mark on Aziraphale. _You don't understand Hell, angel—_

_I think I do,_ Aziraphale tutted. Armored hands clasping the dead and dying. The feel of a blade puncturing a demon's innards. The agony of Enochian scrawl tethering him. _I understand quite well. Besides, we are Earth's Principalities, now. Whole new set of rules._ Aziraphale's wings lifted, one bent crooked, sliding as well as he could along the feathers of Crowley's. Crowley hissed in pain for him, a sudden need to fix, even as he suppressed a shiver of pleasure as their eyes blinked against each other and feathers rubbed.

_Later,_ Aziraphale answered _. This will be worth it._

_What do you want, angel? Tell me and I'll give it to you. Anything you want,_ Crowley thrummed, finally knowing what was being asked of him.

_I want you._

Aziraphale urged him along, shifting along his essence, sliding in and out of him, making the darkness continue to open wider. Crowley felt slotted into place, fluttering, pulsating, and encompassed. Surrounded by divinity without pain. The angel kissing the sinner. His fangs elongated and closed around the throbbing veins of light, injecting darkness into it. The light convulsed and cried out.

If I could read your palm, it would say you have lines of life, lines of love. Fit me against those cracks. I'll fill them for you. The hollow bones of your wings look pitted and scarred, but I know they let you fly. _I love my Bentley, the wind in my hair the smell of the sea. I love—_

_You._

_I love you. Aziraphale, I love you, I love you._

The angel hummed, pleased, and rolled forward, dragging Crowley deeper inside. _Darling._ Slotted mouth to mouth. Wing to wing. Essence to essence until Crowley forgot everything but this singular love, this love he'd shattered portals and surpassed realms for, completely sheathed within that pulsating light. 

_Darling,_ _I’d fight endless wars for you._

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The soundtrack to this work was Within Temptations album Resist and The Pierces' album Creation, alongside Iron and Wine's "Trapeze Swinger" as well as Florence + The Machine's "The End of Love." I've pretty much listened to nothing else in the past month. 
> 
> Special love to my beta reader @insertnerdyjokehere for insightful edits, but more importantly for encouragement and inspiration. There's something special about losing your shit together over two idiots in love, picking apart every nuance of their every glance, and then adding your own story to this ever-evolving mythology.
> 
> I bow before you, gentle readers. As this is my first fanfiction that's ever been posted, I've experienced such joy over your reactions, your comments, your kudos. My little writer soul is lush and green from your kindness and support. Thank you.


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